Thursday, 8 August 2013

Welcome my friend and romance writer, Jane Lark...

Good morning, Jane! So glad to welcome you to my blog to promote your latest (multiple 5 star reviewed) book, Illicit Love - I have heard so many amazing comments about this book and it's on my Kindle ready to read on my holiday to Wales in a few weeks. Can't wait!

Let's get started with the questions!

1)Did you
set any goals for 2013?

2013
has been a bit of an exceptional year for me in completing goals. We moved
house in January, to a new area for us, then my first novel Illicit Love was
released in May, and I guess my real challenge of the year so far was to get
all the way to America and back on my own (my first trip there too). I made it
and had such a great time I’m going back next year.

2)What is
the best part of the writing process for you?

The
writing; I love starting on a new story, just sitting down with my laptop, and
letting my imagination flow as it wishes. I don’t mind editing, but editing is
stilted and more like reading a book, while writing feels like you are
absolutely living with your characters. I hate switching off my computer and
leaving them behind in a period I’m writing.

3)The worst
part?

When
there’s a scene that I know isn’t right and I’m trying to unpick it and work
out exactly what it needs to make it work.

I
rewrote one scene in Illicit Love about fifteen times before I was finally
happy with it. (I won’t say which, it would totally spoil the twists in the
story)

A
painter once said to me that painters are forever going back and making another
touch with the brush, I said writing can be the same. It’s hard to decide the
moment when you are absolutely happy with a novel. Still, I guess that’s the
moment a reader gets your story and characters exactly as you wanted them to be
understood.

4)Tell me
where you write?

Anywhere
and everywhere, my laptop is always around, during lunchtimes at work, on the
sofa in front of the TV in the evening, in bed in the morning, in the car if my
husband’s driving. The better question for me would be where don’t I write?

5)Tell us
about your latest release?

Illicit
Love is the story of a Regency courtesan. It’s inspired by the memoirs of
Harriette Wilson, a real courtesan who fell in love, and didn’t have a happy
ending. But it was the way she writes about her love affair that made me decide
to write Ellen’s story and give her Edward.

They
meet in a gambling hell, and literally from the first moment their gazes
collide their story begins. He is bitter and angry with life, due to a row with
his arrogant rake of a brother. Ellen is the mistress of another man, hollow
and without hope.

That
night, they are both simply seeking a moment of escape, but from the moment
Edward touches Ellen he gives her hope, and they fall intensely in love within
hours of meeting. The questions is; can love redeem a life of sin?

6)Tease us
with a blurb/short except

Lust, his brain
delivered the single word to justify his feelings.

Lust?
Yes, but... He thought for a moment but reached no conclusion. God. Who knew? He’d never felt like this before. He couldn’t
think, couldn’t sleep, and couldn’t even bloody breathe without want of her. It
was not him. His reputation leaned towards dull and staid.

He blamed his brother. Since Robert’s return life had
become boring and Edward had been restless. It seemed the outcome was he had turned to all of his brother’s vices.

What
am I doing here? She’d made it plain she was with Gainsborough by
choice. She wouldn’t meet him. She’d
given herself because Gainsborough had willed it.

But Gainsborough hadn’t willed her to say the man had
swapped his cards. Protecting him was
her choice. And every expression of
her body as Edward had made love to her had told him she was lying. She wanted
him. Her responses had been absolute truth.

That was the conundrum disturbing his sleep. She
haunted him. He could not forget her.

Pushing away from the railings, his gloved hands
curling to fists, he gave up his vigil as Gainsborough’s coachman called to the
horses in the straps and flicked his whip, stirring the thoroughbred blacks
into a trot. The strike of the horses’ hooves rang on the cobble, as did the
iron rim of carriage wheels rolling into motion and the rattle of harness
caught the frigid air.

Edward turned away. How easily he’d been tumbled from
a confident man to an infatuated youth. But God help him, he could not just
leave this, he wanted more of Ellen Harding.

7)Tell us
about a new author you’ve recently discovered

Oh,
there’s the author of a book I was given at the recent Romance Novelists
Association conference in the UK. It’s JA Redmerski, the book is The Edge of
Never. It’s a really good tear jerking read.

8)Name two
romances you’ve read more than once

Okay
so now you’ll discover I’m a sucker for a book that makes you cry, One Day by David
Nicholls. I like to read emotional stories; that’s probably why I also like to
write them. The other one is Simply Unforgettable by Mary Balogh. That is
pretty emotional too. I met Mary when I went to America and completely turned
typical adoring fan.

9)Tell us
about your first car

I’m
ashamed to say, I don’t remember it, not even the colour, I’m a - have car to
get me from A to B person. But having said that I do like the SEAT I’ve got
now.